


And now that death will grow my jasmine

by collectingnames



Series: My Miracle (fjorclay collection) [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death, Grieving, Life Span Differences, M/M, dissociation (maybe?), drayd!Fjord, fjorclay, good thing Fjord swore an oath to a nature goddess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-28 23:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collectingnames/pseuds/collectingnames
Summary: Please, I just, I just need some more time. It can't be the end. Not so soon. If. If that's your will for me, I'll go. But please, at least consider it. If not for me, then for him.





	And now that death will grow my jasmine

**Author's Note:**

> Half-orcs have ridiculously short lifespans and I call bullshit. Also, I just love the idea of a gardener and his plant husband. I'd also like to thank everyone in the fjorclay server for bouncing ideas off each other for getting around this lifespan difference.

_ Please, I just, I just need some more time. It can't be the end. Not so soon. If. If that's your will for me, I'll go. But please, at least consider it. If not for me, then for him. _

But his time comes as it comes for everything. Caduceus prepares his body and buries him in his favorite spot in the Blooming Grove. It's almost peaceful. If not for the fact that when the Nein return to pay their respects and check on Caduceus they can see how empty his eyes are. Not bloodshot with grieving tears, just empty. Jester brings him his sunhat when the afternoon sun beats down on him. Caleb and Nott bring him his shawl and a bowl of soup when the night air cools and they still haven't seen him eat anything yet today. Once it's too dark for him to see, Yasha gently takes him by the hand and guides him back inside the temple.

When morning comes his limbs feel heavy but he forces himself upright to go to Fjord. A sapling springs from the recent grave, barely there, a twig and nothing more. He hadn’t expected anything to grow here this quickly, but maybe it’s because he followed Her with such dedication. His gaze lingers on the sapling for a long minute before the knowledge that Fjord is underneath it makes it too difficult to stay there and returns to sit at the front steps of the temple. 

He spots Beau in her vestments going through a series of stretches in the early light of sunrise to keep her limber even though he’s never met anyone quite as dextrous as her. Her brow is knitted in a tight line, her eyes focused on the middle distance with her back to where Fjord is. 

He lifts himself to his feet by his staff and joins her, clamping a hand onto her shoulder, drawing a choked breath from her, “It’s good to see you again, Archivist.”

She clears her throat, “‘Duceus.”

“If you’re worried that all of us weren’t here, don’t. The timing was strange. It caught me by surprise as well,” reassuring both of them.

“Didn’t hurt?”

“You’d have to ask him. But no, I don’t think so.”

She gives him a concerned look when she turns to face him, “Are you going to be okay, man? You in there? You don’t look quite all there.”

“I have time.”

\----------------------------------------------------------

The Nein spend about a week with him before they start to leave. They give him gentle reminders to eat when he spends too long just wandering through the garden. Luc eagerly follows him around asking any and every question that comes to mind. Yeza doing something similar but more subdued. Yasha helps the most. She doesn’t make him speak if he doesn’t want to. They sit together at his grave where she can help be his anchor in the storm. It looks like she wants to say something, maybe even invoke Zualla, but they spend these times in companionable silence. 

He’s sitting next to the water lilies in the center of the garden when he hears footsteps running towards him. His hand skims the surface, deep in the memory of helping Fjord carve out the reflecting pool.

A frazzled-looking firbolg woman with graying brown hair runs up to him, breathless, “Caddy? Caddy! Oh man! I’m so sorry! I came as soon as I could.”

He doesn’t stop her when she scoops him up into a hug, “It’s okay.”

Colton cradles his face in her hands, “No it’s not, you know that Caddy.”

He ducks his head low so he doesn’t have to look her in the eye, “I thought I still had time.”

She hugs him even tighter, “I’ve got you.”

“Last time you said that I fell out of a tree and broke my leg,” he jokes instead of letting the grief silence him.

She helps him up to his feet, “Come on, it’s not going to do you any good just sitting here thinking about it. What do you say we go collect some tea leaves? Brew a pot when we’re done?”

“How did you know to come?” He finally asks.

“I had a dream,” it’s a vague enough answer but he has his suspicions that the Clay family were on the receiving end of quite a few castings of Sending.

Clarabelle and his brother arrive together two days later and before he knows it the Clays are all together again, picking up where the Nein left off. Jester is the last to leave. Even after Beau can’t ignore her duties with the Cobalt Soul anymore and has to return to Zadash. She promises that she’ll catch up with her once she’s done here. Just a cheeky smile and a muttered ‘I’ll keep an eye on him for both of us’ exchanged between the two of them. He wants to tell her that she should just go ahead and leave but pushing her away right now would likely only make her more determined in her decision.

“Jester,” he regards the teacup he’s holding in his lap instead of looking her in the eye.

“Yes, Caduceus?” she perks up.

He stares up at the branches of the blackthorn tree growing from Fjord’s grave, it has no business being this tall already, but like when it was a sapling not but two weeks ago he chalks it up to his dedication to the Wildmother, “Do you think he’s safe? Wherever he is?”

“Of course. I’m sure he’s fine wherever he is. Where do Her followers go? Do you know?”

“No, I was never too concerned with what comes _after_. Just what happens now.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s still some lingering hope against all hope that Fjord might come back by some miracle. If he were to spring back as if nothing had happened it would have happened already. Jester leaves too after a few more days. Maybe she felt it too and couldn’t bear to stay any longer and reassured that he wasn’t alone anymore, left.

So he takes to sitting with the blackthorn. He talks to it as he tends to the other graves and works in the garden. Not that Fjord can hear him, but pretending eases the pain and that’s all he needs. One memorable night he starts tallying up just how many diamonds he would need but it’s a moment of weakness he doesn’t ever want to think about again. Neither of them would want that. He hurts but pulling aside the veil and tugging Fjord back onto his side of it would only hurt them both more. Fjord is safe with the Wildmother, he’s safe, in some sort of afterlife bliss.

He rests a hand on the bark, can feel the swirling wood-grain under his palm, “Miss you.”

No response.

“Everyone misses you.”

No response.

“I thought I would take it better.”

No response.

“I guess I was wrong.”

No response.

His hand lingers on the bark when he turns to go back inside.

\------------------------------------

_ He’s breathing. By gods he’s feeling so much, everything all at once. He can taste the air as it lays heavy on his face. Every creature in the Blooming Grove calls out in a cacophony that threatens to deafen him. His legs feel both like they’re about to give out under him and filled with more vigor than he could ever recall. He can’t see though, it’s dark, wherever he is. The darkness opens up in front of him to what he would be able to tell was the earliest signs of sunrise if this first light weren’t so blinding to him. He grasps blindly in front of him, hands wrapping around the bark that surrounds and opens before him. Once he starts moving he can feel the shroud he’s wrapped in shifting across his otherwise bare skin. _

\------------------------------------------

A month has passed since that morning when Caduceus is stirred from a dreamless sleep by the sounds of someone stumbling outside in the beginnings of dawn. He pulls the blanket up and around his shoulders as he slides out of bed to investigate the noise. The bed definitely still feels empty but not as cold.

Caduceus takes a step into the cool, dewy grass outside the temple and can feel that something has changed. A warm, comforting breeze like a summer sunset hits him and he can almost feel Her hand on his shoulder urging him forwards.

He charges headfirst into the headstones where he knows the blackthorn is. The chances of it are-. **No**. No chances, just destiny. And just maybe destiny has decided to be kind. And who is he, lowly grave-keeper Caduceus Clay, to doubt destiny?

He grips onto the blackthorn and swings himself around to come to a stop. He’s slightly winded from the all-out sprint and when he looks down to see what exactly he’s holding on to he sees his hand clutching white-knuckled at a hollow that wasn’t there the night before. Slowly he comes around to face the tree. A hollow stretches up from the ground to maybe a head shorter than himself. With a few frenzied steps backwards he inspects the ground directly outside the follow and can make out footprints half-covered by his own now.

A joy he can’t name takes a hold of his voice and he shouts at the top of his lungs into the Grove, “** _FJORD!_ **”

He doesn’t hear a response but there’s a rustling in the bushes.

He bolts towards the sound, “** _FJORD!_ **”

The rustling turns into a jog headed towards the garden.

He chases after the footsteps, not letting up for even a second as his lungs burn with the strain. The footsteps start to slow once he gets deeper into the garden, chasing the source past the daisies, further towards the center where the water lilies are. In his haste, he stumbles on the edge of his blanket and nearly tumbles ass over teakettle through the jasmine.

It takes a second for him to catch himself, and he can’t help but cringe a little at the crushed jasmine behind him. In the final moments, he has to force himself to look up. So close and only now does the fear that he’s made an ass of himself by assuming it was him he’s been chasing.

His eyes dart up to look at the runner and he falls so deeply, maddeningly in love all over again.

It’s him, it’s Fjord, there’s no question about it. His once amber-yellow eyes have turned a dazzling shade of green, green as all the lush things that grow. He can see through the shroud that struggles to cover him that patches of bark grow along the sides of arms, a gnarled, almost heart-shaped knot of wood pokes out of his chest, and in the center of his forehead is a Melora’s swirl made from the same wood as on his arms. Kelp maybe? Streaks his age-white hair.

Caduceus whips the blanket off his own shoulders and bundles Fjord in it, pulls him into his arms where it’s warm. He’s _alive_. He’s _here_. He could have just disappeared in a puff of smoke the moment his hands met him but no, he’s _here_. This isn’t some cruel trick.

He pulls back just enough to hold Fjord’s face, it’s him! And he’s so warm! And alive! The tears choke his voice as they come unrestrained, “_ Fjord? _”

“‘Ducey?” Fjord’s voice is hoarse and his eyes are hesitant, also waiting for something to shatter what must surely be an illusion. 

“YOU’RE-!” Words fail him, thanks the gods for taking his tongue and ruining the moment.

Fjord is the shocked kind of breathless, “Alive.”

“How? You-? _ How? _” He leans into it when Fjord wraps his arms around his neck to steady himself, puts a hand on his hip to help him.

Fjord takes his hands in his own and he could almost cry at how _warm_ they are, the life that thrums in them, “I asked for more time. I thought She didn’t hear me. I guess I was wrong.”

“_ I’ve never been so glad to hear that you were wrong before _.”

He bends down to kiss Fjord in something so clumsy and excited it’s barely a kiss and hums a smile against his lips. Fjord eagerly responds, wrapping the blanket around them both and tugging Caduceus down onto his level to deepen it.


End file.
